And let's say from the off that, apart from the slower last third, this film is thrilling! Absolutely thrilling!

I'll get the negatives out of the way first. I like reviews of films I've enjoyed to end happily.

The more I like them, the more uplifting the conclusion (at the end of my Sex Lives Of The Potato Men review, I brought up the Ethiopian famine).

First up, Mel Brooks has hired the wrong director. Susan Stoman was responsible for the hugely successful Broadway show, but then sadly directs this as if it also were set on a stage, with the actors shouting to the back row.

So ALL of the performances are wildly over the top. Film, because of close-ups, requires a little subtlety. This will annoy you for a bit, but you'll warm to it. There are about three songs too many and it fumbles its way towards an unsatisfactory conclusion, making the film about half an hour too long.

You might think those serious flaws, but there really was a point about half way through where I sat there thinking it one of the most entertaining things I'd ever set eyes upon.

Through "creative accounting" they work out a way to make a fortune from staging a sure fire FLOP. But it MUST be a flop for them to make off with the readies.

The idea behind the show has to be so ridiculous it can't possibly work. (Note to the BBC: How close were the producers of He's Having A Baby to the accounts depo? Because this is one licence fee payer who's sensing some foul play.)

They find a script called Springtime For Hitler, a musical written by a crackpot German who thinks Adolf was misunderstood.

Will Ferrell, whose comic talent has been wasted of late (Bewitched, Kicking And Screaming) comes good. "I haven't felt zis happy since ve crushed Poland," he screams on realising his script is to be made. (Sit through the credits for a Ferrell bonus). But unlike He's Having A Baby, the show becomes an unintentional hit (they'd have been better backing Michael Barrymore's one man show from early last year. It lasted three nights. I saw it. World War Two is definitely funnier).

For those of us who didn't get to see Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick performing the leads on Broadway, this is a treat. And a damn sight cheaper.

As pure comic talent neither is as good a Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in Brook's Sixties version, but that wasn't a musical and it's during the song and dance numbers that they come into their own.

Uma Thurman looks incredible as Fifties (when it's set) Swedish receptionist/wannabe Ulla. She plays her like a Scandanavian Marilyn Monroe. It's rare and tremendous to see Thurman play an out-and-out sex kitten. A real star turn.

The Producers manages to be both terribly old fashioned and terribly post modern.

It's also packed full of outdated homosexual stereotypes, which you'll love.

The flamboyance of the other musical numbers means that when you eventually get to see Springtime For Hitler, it doesn't have quite the impact of the original.

But The Producers is cracking entertainment.

You'll want to applaud quite frequently. Don't... it's a cinema.

Mel Brooks won't care much for this (he's Jewish) but he's just got himself four Bacon rashers.